Sunday, September 13, 2009

Thursday, September 10, 2009

My last post was about being a blog slacker...and I do freely admit that things have been a little hectic around the Patrick household...but my hopes are that this blog and a few more posts with pictures will bring me back into the good graces of the two people who haven't given up on us.

Here is the last few months all summed up:

Surgery: I tore my ACL, which I talked about in a previous post. I am now four months removed from the surgery it took to repair said tear and I have just learned today that I have been released back to my normal life again, this means that I can suck at golf, tennis, and softball again but at least now I can blame my surgically repaired right knee if it gets too bad

Sports: We have really gotten into soccer and baseball this summer. I joined some friends and got season tickets for our MLS team Real Salt Lake and have really enjoyed going to the games we just got to see the US national team play El Salvador in a World Cup Qualifier match...what a game! I have become a Boston Red Sox fan much to the chagrin of my sister who is a huge Yankees fan but when I was in Texas for a week Brandy made it possible for me to see two Red Sox/Rangers games the first game our seats were in the Comissioner's box and we were literally 20 feet away from first base...THANKS BRAND!

World Changing - I signed up for World Changers again this summer and the project went great. I was blessed to have the best summer staff I have ever had with TK, Lauren, Angela, and Christopher. I don't think I have laughed that much or had that much fun while working so hard. Some of the statistics from our project are: 28 projects completed, 4 community salvations, 3 participant salvations, 6 rededications, and 1 student called to full time missions! What a cool week. World Changers is changing up their schedule for next year. I'm not sure I like the changes but we'll see how it goes.

Adventures in real estate: Rachael and I are purchasing a house! I have included a picture of the house below. We've had an interesting experience while looking for a home. We saw one house that reminded me of Silence of the Lambs with its creepy basement and hat making business. Another home we saw had horrible water damage and smelled extensively of moth balls. We were very happy to find this house and God has really provided us with the right situation at the right time for us to get into the house. We close on September 30th and take possession 48 hours later. We'll have to re-do the carpet and have had the thought of hardwood floors in areas of the house. We'll also work to update the bathrooms and the kitchen of the house but it will be cool to make it our own and any improvements we make only help the resale value if we have to sell but we're not planning on that for a long while.

Rachael: Rachael went to Kenya with a team at the end of July and into early August. The medical team that she went with helped a lot of people with not a lot of supplies. God really used her experience to help her see through his eyes and I'm sure there will be return trips to continue the amazing work that is being done there. Rachael is hard at work in Occupational Therapy. Her mentor took a job at the University of Utah so she is now one of the most tenured OT's on the rehab floor. She is constantly telling me of patients and their stories, but is encouraged when she gets to see them walk or function in a new way.

Sean: Things in ministry have been going awesome. Since restoring our Pastor to full time ministry we have been moving in leaps and strides rather than in baby steps. People's lives are being changed and transformed by the movement of the Holy Spirit and it has been amazing to be a part of it. In addition to my responsibilities with Worship, I am now in charge of missions and properties at HBC. I can honestly say that I am in my dream job and it truly is an honor to be serving the kingdom with this congregation!

Monday, August 31, 2009

I haven't posted in a while and there is no good reason for it. I am mainly posting now to prove to myself that I can post. We've been busy and are enjoying life so that's good. I'm going to post soon with pictures from Rachael's trip to Africa, my knee surgery, world changers, and the happenings at HBC. Though I'm sure I've lost all readership, stay tuned and don't give up on the Patrick blog quite yet.

Monday, June 08, 2009

This weekend Rachael and I met up with her brother Jordan and his wife Holly to play Bocci at Murray Park. After dominating them with my bocci prowess, we decided that we had done enough to reward ourselves with ice cream. We headed to Iceberg, ordered our treats and proceeded to people watch.

I've noticed that Salt Lake City is getting a little bit of culture, strange culture, but culture none the less. During our time at the iceberg, we observed a man wearing a cargo skirt/kilt, another man who decided that waiting in line at iceberg was the perfect time to do calf raises and stretches, but there was one person that took the cake.

My attention was directed across the street to a rather large woman wearing a dingy white sports bra for a top, blue jeans of which there was significant amount of, I believe the term is "muffin top". Her jeans were tucked into shin high brown sueded, tasseled boots and the woman was walking with all sorts of swagger.

Right at the moment I chuckled to myself out loud and the other three in my group had done the same, a 10 year old red-head walked by us and said "Yeah, that's my mom." Our laughter turned immediately to panic as we contemplated our next move. We decided to run away. That's right, I took my ice cream treat and got into my car to avoid the painful stare of a ten year old whose mother I had just chuckled at.

While I've told this story to several friends and have been confirmed that they most likely would have done the same thing, I still can't get over the fact that I ran from a ten year old and that is a moment that I will never get back...

Friday, May 29, 2009

Now that I am out of school, you can see that I have been enjoying/feeding my media addiction with movies, music, and books (especially books that aren't assigned.) I realized that there hasn't really been a family update for a while so I thought I would take some time to update our few readers as to what has been happening with the Utah dwelling Patricks.

Ministry: Our ministry has blossomed over the past year and we (Rachael and I) have been doing more and more together as a ministry team. We have the opportunity to go to Kenya at the end of July and are still praying that God provides the funds and the means to be His hands and feet to people who need to experience the love of God in tangible ways. We will be going to do medical clinics and youth/sports learning camps...I'm overwhelmed just thinking about it. Please pray for us as we face this amazing opportunity. Things in worship ministry are very different than youth ministry but I know that I am in the right place as God reaffirms my decision daily. We will continue to lift Christ up and Christ will draw all men to himself.

Life: In January, during a ski-day, I had a crash that ended up tearing my ACL in my right knee. It was originally diagnosed as a sprain/possible meniscus tear, but when the weather got warm and I was ready to play tennis and softball, my knee wouldn't let me. I had my knee looked at again and found that I in fact had a torn ACL and it required surgery. I had the surgery two weeks ago and am now recovering and participating in Physical Therapy to get my knee back to 100%. Rachael has been amazing during this time both in helping me with therapy and taking care of me while I was unable to get around. I'm on injured reserve for 4-6 months but am committed to getting it healed.

Wife: Rachael is doing awesome and is loving her OT job. She sees people as they are coming to grips that their life will never be the same, some may never walk again, and some may not be the same people as an accident left them with a brain injury. Rachael offers a bit of hope in showing people how they can function after these life-changing events. For every bad story I hear, she has 4 good ones of how someone is moving their hand again, or is realizing that there is more to life. I'm very proud of her!

I had an amazing movie/book night last night. After all the hype about Slumdog Millionaire we thought we would give it a shot, and while Rachael slept through most of it, I was on the edge of my seat. I then finished Cormac McCarthy's "The Road". Both of these were so good that I had a hard time going to sleep because I was thinking about the characters and the underlying messages of both of these stories.

Slumdog Millionaire: A well filmed, well told story of a "Who Wants to be a Millionaire" contestant in India knows the answers to each of the questions. Each question has to do with different elements of Jamal, Salim, and Latika's lives. The story ultimately has to do with love. The love of a brother and the forgiveness that can be found even when all looks dreary...as well as passionate love between a man and a woman. Jamal never forgets about Latika and spends the entire film trying to find her as they are seperated several times. I am more of a renter now than a buyer of movies, but this is one that I will end up putting in my collection.

The Road: What is the bravest thing you have ever done?, a son asks his father. His father's response? "I woke up this morning." McCarthy's book is set in a post-apocalyptic world where everything is burnt, dead, or slowly turning to ash, there is no sun and the cold is all that our characters seem to be familiar with. The book really deals with the struggle of a parent in answering all of life's important questions when raising a child...what will they eat, what will they drink, what will I do if my child is threatened, where will they sleep, will they be healthy, what are they going to do without me. McCarthy's novel encourages the reader to face their own mortality while reading about this father and son. McCarthy also brings up the element of faith with his characters and how they don't feel that God is there because of all the evil in the world, which I found to be an interesting commentary on how people feel today even when all their needs are being met.

Friday, May 22, 2009

They say the first step to addiction is admitting that you have a problem. I'll admit it, I'm addicted. I'm addicted to books and music and I can't get enough of either of them. For a while I enjoyed itunes but now Amazonmp3.com is my favorite place to get new music. If you are interested in books and haven't been to alibris.com you are missing out. With all this music and reading going on I thought I would take some time to share what I've been listening to and what I've been reading since I gained my freedom from school.

Music:1.) Bon Iver - For Emma, Forever Ago - great chill album...one of those albums that you can just push play to.2.) Death Cab For Cutie - Narrow Stairs - Cath has to be one of the greatest Death Cab songs ever3.) Fiction Family - Switchfoot and Nickel Creek combine for some awesomeness4.) Mewithoutyou - It's All Crazy! It's All False! It's All a Dream! It's Alright - an acquired taste but I love this new album5.) The New Frontiers - One of the best albums to come from a band who broke up right after releasing it. This album is great...another just push play.

Books:1.) The Road - Cormac McCarthy - currently reading this one...2.) Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck - short but an amazing story of friendship and determination3.) No Country for Old Men - Cormac McCarthy - the movie follows this pretty closely and it won best picture...no kidding.4.) A Thousand Splendid Suns - Khaled Hosseini - A story of redemption and the history of Afghanistan5.) The Pilgrim's Progress - John Bunyan - The second most printed book behind only the Bible. Very interesting...a bit of a tough read but well worth it.

I've had a goal for myself since I attended Rachael's undergrad graduation. That goal was that I would go back to school and get my undergrad degree before I turned 30. There were a lot of things that needed to fall into place in order for me to reach that goal but God had planned it for me and I knew that he was going to provide a way through it.

The first hurdle was work. I was working two jobs, one semi full time (Overstock) and the other full time (HBC). I was brought on to the church staff full time and was told that I needed to go back to school as the church was investing in me and my future. I quit Overstock and signed up for classes at SLCC for the next semester

The second hurdle was math. I was terrified of it. I didn't think that it was possible for me to get through the required math classes to get my degree but thanks to some awesome professors, a lot of homework, and a lot of hard work, I passed each math class with an A.

The third hurdle was money. Working in ministry and putting your spouse through graduate school is very difficult and a strain on the finances. God was looking out for us here as well because right when I needed to transfer to the University of Utah, Rachael was out of school and working at IHC in a job that took the pressure off of us financially.

As of May 8, 2009 I became an alumni of the University of Utah. My degree is in Speech/Organizational Communications. I turn 30 on July 3, 2009. I screamed right up to my self imposed deadline but I made it!

My next goal?: Learning to play guitar within two years. That one is a bit more my speed and will hopefully be a lot more fun!